WAR designer says they could ship without all classes

by Chris Chester Feb 9th 2008 at 11:00AM

Filed under: Fantasy, Classes, Forums, New titles, Warhammer Online

The life of a developer can be arduous. As we've explained in the past, players (and bloggers!) have a habit of scrutinizing every public utterance of a developer, real or imaginary, and conjuring up all sorts of elaborate doomsday scenarios. Developers who have the cajones to brave the forums with any regularity really have to bite their tongues, lest they say something that will really get the players into a panic. So imagine our surprise when Warhammer Online designer Mark Jacobs openly posted in a thread stating that he wouldn't be distraught if he had to ship a game minus a couple of classes if it meant they could hit their target date.

And then, in the same breath (or whatever the forum equivalent of a breath is), he says that Mythic and EA are committed to shipping the game when it's ready, citing Blizzard's model for their continued success. It's all a bit confusing. For my part, I take more comfort in the philosophy espoused in the second post. As much as it would pain me if they did, they're not going to lose players by putting off the release date a month or two. You will lose players if they buy your game and find it is less than they were expecting.

Tags: breaking, classes, delay, ea, ea-mythic, forums, mark-jacobs, mythic, WAR, warhammer-online

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

GRT said on 12:44PM 2-09-2008

Not sure I agree. It would depend on how many classes they're planning.

If they ship a polished game with (for example) 10 classes, then add in another 4 classes a few months down the road, I wouldn't see that as a problem, and in fact they could spin the additional classes as free expansion material.

OTOH if they ship with 4 classes and plan on adding another 10 after launch, then yeah, that's a problem.

NekoAli said on 1:23PM 2-09-2008

The problem is, there are 6 races, and 4 races per class. Each class will fill a specific role for that race. If they leave one out, that's a huge hole. It would be a very bad idea to not have all the classes in the beginning. Better to get them in, then work on details later, or focus on them and work on end game things later.

Especially since each class is so iconic to fans of Warhammer, I can see a lot of people who will simply not play if they can't be X from the start. Then you have to try to drag them back afterwards when X class is in the game.

Snailking said on 4:33PM 2-09-2008

I can understand if a launch title has a few things missing that they patch in within 6 months or so. A dungeon or two, a few quests, or maybe some tradeskill features are no problem. However, classes are non-negotiable. Characters are what anchor people to your game. You launch with them in full form, or you don't launch.

KHCloud said on 6:13AM 2-10-2008

This seems to fit with the rumours I've been hearing from inside EA that they may be going with a Silkroad/Knight Online-esque system, rather than the traditional, subscription fee.